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- DA interim leader John Steenhuisen has urged the president to move South Africa to Level 1 of the blockade.
- He says that poverty represents a greater risk for the country.
- Steenhuisen says that all sectors should be open and normal school weeks should resume, but that large gatherings in confined spaces should remain prohibited.
DA interim leader John Steenhuisen has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to open up all sectors of the economy.
Steenhuisen’s call comes amid growing speculation that the president will announce a move to level 1 lockdown this week.
South Africa has been under different levels of lockdown since March in an attempt to combat the spread of Covid-19.
Initial projections suggested that under Level 1, the country would return to some level of normalcy, with health and safety protocols still in place.
Steenhuisen said the president should allow international travel and a normal school week.
“This severe and prolonged lockdown has plunged our economy, the livelihood of our society, into an unprecedented crisis,” Steenhuisen said in a statement Tuesday.
Ramaphosa himself hinted to journalists that the country was ready to move to the final level of the blockade.
The president is expected to chair virtual meetings with his coordinating council and the National Council for Economic Development and Labor (Nedlac) on Tuesday to discuss more about the possible measure.
Steenhuisen said lockdown restrictions must end “immediately” with the exception of mass gatherings in confined spaces.
Individual responsibility
“The lockdown has devastated South Africa’s economy, causing immense suffering, including widespread hunger. It has increased (rather than decreased) risk to millions of households and exacerbated inequality, including educational inequality,” he said.
He added that the government must be able to trust people to take “individual responsibility” and observe the necessary protocols.
READ | Lockdown Level 1: Ramaphosa to hold high-level meetings, discuss possible relaxation of regulations
Steenhuisen added that the DA did not deny the risk of a second wave, but argued that scientists seemed to think it was low and the DA believed that prolonged deep depression was a much higher risk to the country’s households.
“We need to get back to work, school and our lives, and we need to do it safely. But we must do more than that. We must also agree, as a society, to support economic reforms that can get our economy growing again. , and that can roll back poverty, unemployment and inequality, “Steenhuisen said.
He proposed “urgently” opening the energy market, auctioning spectrum to reduce data costs and opening the labor market to small businesses as some interventions that can be adopted as part of the country’s economic recovery plans.
“We must move away from investment-killing policies like NHI (national health insurance), EWC (expropriation without compensation), asset prescription and nationalization of SARB (Reserve Bank of South Africa),” he added.
“Poverty is a deadly pandemic in its own right, requiring decisive action from our government that, until now, has not been possible,” he said.
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